Farioli, half-time chat and Casa Pia: “They played very differently…” | OneFootball

Words at half-time: “It was very precise: I spoke about the things we had to improve, the situations we had to exploit more clearly, with less time to think. It wasn’t about motivation, because the team was well prepared, with good training sessions. So far, in these months I’ve been here, the team has proved to be very mature, very competitive, led by a group of captains who do not let anyone drop their heads. I just have to do my job as a coach and nothing more than that.”

Benfica: “The level of our rivals has gone up. We knew that, from the transfer business they did, from the decisions they made; one of the two changed coach. They are new teams, new energies; what happened last season stays in last season. It is a new year, a new battle for everyone. Our preparation starts tomorrow morning; for us [the coaching staff] it starts a little earlier, now on the way back, on the bus. We will have a week to work, to be ready, and we expect them at the Dragão, in front of our fans, with the right spirit, with the same desire as always: to deliver a great performance.”

Casa Pia’s approach: “They approached the game in a very different way from what they had done in previous matches; they had been much braver in pressing, but today they were much more conservative. On the ball they always try to play, but today they were kicking it 80 metres forward to try to win the second ball. We needed a bit of time to adjust our approach. On a pitch that was not in great condition, very dry, it was not easy to find combinations through the middle, so we had to go much more down the flanks, and that was our dynamic in the game. In the second half, with more speed, things went better.”

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇵🇹 here.